“You hurried,” she tells me, and walks past me toward the staircase. I watch her disappear and let her have the final word. Because she’s right, and the only person to blame for that is me.
CHAPTER 24
PAIGE
The wedding dress feels too tight.
It’s gorgeous, of course. Sylvie has pulled off a miracle in only a week. She took a mostly completed wedding dress from the Milan atelier and had her team prioritize its finish.
The ivory silk has two thin straps over my shoulders and a draped cowl neck that hints at my cleavage before narrowing to my waist. It flows out from there in a soft, almost mermaid style finish.
It’s everything I’d ever want for a real wedding.
But this isn’t a real wedding. I married a man I hate in a courthouse, to save my company, and it was over in fifteen minutes. This is a public spectacle with a single purpose—to sell the illusion that we’re in love.
Maybe I’ll never get to experience this again.
It’s not like I’m good at relationships anyway, and lord knows how long Rafe and I will have to be married. I’m doing this for Mather & Wilde. For the employees who raised me, who feel like family. For my parents and my grandparents, who worked tirelessly to make the company a success.
Did you know he terrorized my sister?He asked.Family is everything.
It is, and my uncle doing something so idiotic and amoral proves just how far he’s devolved from the man I once knew. From my father’s brother who loved to have fun, who would chase me around the Mather & Wilde warehouse while I shrieked with laughter.
Familyiseverything. And I’ve lost all of mine.
“What do you think?” Sylvie is sitting on one of sofas. The villa’s living room has been transformed into an atelier for the day. Her dogs are lying near her feet.
“It’s so beautiful. I could never thank you enough.”
She reaches down to run a hand over the thin head of her greyhound. “Don’t thank me. My work will be photographed, yes? It’s a win-win.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” I say. It’s rare that anyone says it out loud, but she’s been straight with me from the beginning.
“How did you like Colette? She was good, yes?”
I look in the mirror her team brought in. A seamstress is standing behind me, working on the tiny silk-clad buttons, and it’s hard to breathe. “Yes. Amazing.”
“She told me that you two were… interesting,” Sylvie says.
I look down at where the ivory hem kisses the ground.
I’ll have to pretend in front of dozens of guests in just a few days. Guests I barely know. The guest list is a mile long and all are business connections. I didn’t invite Amy or any of my old college friends. How could I ask them to make the long and expensive trip for afakewedding? How could I sell a lie to them? The stakes are too high.
I need to get out of this dress so I can take a full breath again. My chest is tight, and I know this feeling.Not now, I think, but that’s never stopped it before.
“Interesting?” I ask.
“Yes,” Sylvie says. “She has complete client confidentiality, of course, but she said you two have such chemistry.”
I look around for the closest door. It opens up to the garden and the lake beyond. I try to get off the small podium I’m on. Someone is protesting. The seamstress? Sylvie? I need to leave before she sees me break down and thinks I’m not brilliantly, incandescently happy. My breathing is audible now. Shit.
And the shoes. I need to get out of the heels?—
“You’re not meant to be in here!” The voice is much closer. Sylvie’s, accented in French. “Seeing the dress is a bad sign. Shoo, Raphaël. Shoo.”
He appears in front of me, eyes locked on mine. I’d be embarrassed if I could focus on anything but the rising tide of panic inside me. Damn it.
“She’s already my wife.” He looks at me for a few seconds before wrapping an arm around my waist. “I need to borrow her for a moment. I’ll bring her right back to you. I promise, Sylvie.”
